Rooted and Home Grown

My family has always hunted, fished, and had vegetable gardens. We are a live off the land kind of people, which has lead us to a healthy and active lifestyle. My mother grew up on a dairy farm that also had crops and other live stock. My dad well….he is a kind of live off the earth, eat healthy, surf, hunt, and shoot guns kind of man. So between the two of them, there was always one if not both, planting seasonal veggies at our house. Since before I can remember, the garden has been a constant, I grew up in a garden….playing in the dirt and picking veggies. When pulling carrots is a family past time, you might say we are the new age hippie, ha ha!

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I still to this day garden with my parents. I have even helped my friend Cole in his garden a few times. It is rewarding to put in all the work and then see the delicious outcome. It is a happy feeling to have an abundant, plentiful, healthy crop growing in your garden. It might sound funny to some to hear someone say hey are proud of a tomato or to show off a pepper on Face Book. Until you have put forth all the effort that comes with tending a vegetable garden you might not understand. I am proud of all you garden folk out there! It’s not easy, but it is rewarding! It is a lot of work just preparing the dirt. Then you have to figuring out what to do when problems like bugs and other pests arrive. Oh and don’t forget to water everyday.

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The biggest obstacles we face living on the coast gardening have been… Gofers, cut ants, and salty air wind burn. My Dad is currently at war with gofers that ate the roots and killed some of his tomato plants. One day they were large happy tomato crops and the next day withering dead leaves because of that dang gofer! Needless to say it was like that movie Cadi Shack at my parents place for a while. My Dad was even going to disown his cat Scooter because he is yet to catch the veggie eating rodent for him! If you have the room in your yard and time in your day to garden, do it! It is a very healthy thing the whole family can help each other with! Who needs the farmers market, grow it yourself! Rooted and home grown, that’s the way my family does it in Texas!